Obama, Romney on 60-day sprint; new GOP ads

Sixty days to the election, President Barack Obama charges onto the campaign trail Friday pleading for patience from hard-pressed Americans toying with the notion of change, and portraying Republican rival Mitt Romney as unproven. Ready for the two-month sprint, the GOP nominee blasted out 15 TV ads in eight states in response.

Obama and Romney shadow each other Friday: Both of them are campaigning in New Hampshire and Iowa, improbable battleground states in the too-close-to-call race. The campaigning was sure to be dominated by a new report from the Labor Department on the nation’s jobless.

On the morning after Obama’s closing speech at the Democratic National Convention, top campaign adviser Robert Gibbs was up early to pronounce the gathering a success.

[dmc-related-post-wp numitems="3" title="Also read"]

“The entire convention showed you where Barack Obama wants to take this country,” he said. But Gibbs acknowledged there’s a far different dynamic to this race than the excitement and novelty that were associated with Obama’s historic first race for the White House.

“This isn’t 2008, we understand that,” Gibbs said on “CBS This Morning.” He added that Obama knows his mission of strengthening the economy is “incomplete.”

Romney and the Republicans argue that three years of unemployment above 8 percent and minimal economic growth are valid reasons to fire Obama after one term. The incumbent contends that, having inherited one of the worst economic crises in history, he needs more time to turn the nation around.

“I won’t pretend the path I’m offering is quick or easy. I never have,” Obama told Democrats at their convention Thursday night. “You didn’t elect me to tell you what you wanted to hear. You elected me to tell you the truth. And the truth is, it will take more than a few years for us to solve challenges that have built up over decades.”

Obama’s concession that his work is incomplete runs smack into a harsh reality: No president since the Great Depression has been re-elected with such grim economic numbers.

For the candidates, the two months to Nov. 6 promise a high-stakes mix of debates, multiple appearances in a dozen battleground states and hours of campaign speeches. Both will be scrapping for the precious commodity of electoral votes to reach the winning number of 270, leaving no competitive state quiet this fall. The airwaves will be inundated with ads from the campaigns and outside groups, with Romney likely to have more money to spend.

The GOP nominee has new ads running in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia — mapping out many of the key battleground states where the race will play out. His campaign has purchased about $4.5 million in television advertising for the next several days, according to officials who track such spending.

The themes of those ads — deficit, home values, defense, over-regulation, manufacturing, energy, families — offer a preview of some of the issues sure to dominate the conversation in coming weeks.

Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, along with their wives, campaign Friday in New Hampshire — it offers four electoral votes — and Iowa — six votes — before ending the day in Florida, the highest-count swing state with 29.

While Romney hits Iowa and New Hampshire, too, his wife, Ann, presses for votes in Virginia — 13 electoral votes — and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, focuses on Nevada — six votes. The battleground list includes Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.